Sunday, January 10, 2010

While Twelfth Night is usually regarded as the end of the Christmas Season, in rural England there was one final celebration: Plough Monday.

The first part of the festivities, on the Sunday after Epiphany, was serious and solemn enough. A ribbon-decked plough was carried into the local church to be blessed in the hope of a prosperous, productive new year, and a symbolic return to work after the Christmas season.

The next day, however - Plough Monday - was marked by more pagan excess, with the newly-blessed plough dragged through the neighborhood by burly ploughmen with their faces painted black, loudly demanding pennies for a frolic afterwards. Anyone who didn't oblige risked having their yard ploughed up; think trick-or-treating with an attitude.

Afterwards followed much drinking, kissing-games, bonfires, drumming, and general partying in the street, led by Molly Dancers (ploughmen in hobnail boots and black-painted faces) dancing around the plough and with each other. Overseeing it all would be their "queen", Bessy, a big guy dressed as a woman. Traditions vary from region to region, but the basics (and the plough) seems to be much the same.

These two 19th c. prints capture the spirit of the day pretty well. I particularly like the resigned women and children watching from the front of their cottage, doubtless wondering what is up with their cross-dressing Dad.

Here are two 19th c. reports of Plough Monday, already a bit gilded with nostalgia: from Chamber's Book of Days (1879) and Hone's Everyday Book(1825). However, lest you think Plough Monday is now to be found only to Thomas-Hardy-Land, here's proof via YouTube (and in the pub afterwards, of course) that it's still going strong – at least with these Molly Dancers in Suffolk, UK. The band's traditional music is fun, too.

In the 18th & early 19th centuries, molly was usually slang for sodomite. But then as well as later it could refer to someone who was effeminate. These days it seems to either mean sissy boy or refer to men in drag.

Vanessa, I'm afraid I can't offer any enlightenment as to why ploughmen dressing in dresses was part of the celebration. But then there's a long tradition of Englishmen adopting female dress, from the boys-as-actresses on Shakespeare's stage to Monty Python. Anyone else who knows more than we do is welcome to explain!

knitlit kate, I can't see my father getting into this either. But then, there are photos floating around my family of my father-in-law in college dressed in drag for an all-male version of "The Mikado" in the 1940s -- so who knows? *g*

And you're welcome for the snood-catch. What I'd like to know, though, (from a purely historical point of view, of course) is how the word "snood" has shifted its meaning in the last year or so, from a net-like bag over the hair to a huge-o looped neckscarf?

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.